After seeing Matthew again, I decided to find another job. I wanted a life without any reminders of who I used to be. I wanted to put my old life behind me.
But that isn’t possible, when you’ve been around as much as I have, there’s always someone who’ll remember you. Every job I get, eventually someone comes in who remembers me. I deny it every time. I act like they’re wrong, and I have no idea what they’re talking about – but we both know I’m lying.
As a result, I’m thinking of leaving the country. I think it’s time to go and find my father.
I want to know who this ‘Daniel Ashdown’ is. The address for him on my birth certificate is in the UK. So I searched Facebook for every Daniel Ashdown on there and contacted them, asking them if they knew my mother.
Finally one replied, saying that he had, and everything is moving forward from there.
He’s agreed to meet me. I don’t know what meeting him will do. But I feel like I have to go.
I’ve been frugal since starting to work. I’ve spent only what I needed to over the years. I guess I’ve been afraid of my life blowing up again and having nothing to fall back on. I’ve saved a lot and can afford to go to the UK for a few months without working. Although I think I will get a job as soon as possible – with my funds limited, I don’t want to risk running my money down too low and being unable to find something.
The one great benefit of my birth father being British, is that I can get a British passport. I have dual citizenship.
I spend my evenings online, pouring over information about the UK. I search the area where my father lives, and where I think I might like to stay. The idea of having a new start in life and leaving every person who ever knew me before, is glorious to me.
For the first time in years. I’m actually smiling.
Chapter Forty-Eight
My life in Australia has been packed up and either stored or given away. I don’t need it anymore.
On the other side of the world is a new life. It’s there waiting for me. No more looking over my shoulder. No more seeing places that remind me of what I’ve done, or who I was – it’s all going to be new.
With a duffel bag that I purchased from the camping store, filled with the basics. I set off to the airport.
I haven’t told a soul where I’m going. I don’t want anyone to know where I am. As the cab approaches the international departure building at Sydney Airport, butterflies dance excitedly through my entire body.
I check my bag, and get my boarding pass. Then go and sit in the waiting area near my departure gate, while I listen to my music and leaf through a fashion magazine. Glancing up occasionally, I watch as other passengers take the seats around me. I smile to myself, as a striking looking man sits not far away from me. He actually looks as though he should be pictured in this magazine with a tall skinny girl draped over him and pouting. He seems at odds with the normal looking people around him.
Around forty minutes later, a voice comes over the loud speaker, and tells us that our flight is boarding. People around me begin to collect their things and line up, as their seat numbers are called.
I’m nervous, and keep looking at my ticket, scared that I might forget my seat number and miss my call. I’ve never flown before, so this is all very new to me.
Finally the woman’s voice says the group of numbers that features my own, and I move quickly to get on board. I’m desperate to start this journey. This journey means everything to me.
As I take my seat on the plane, I struggle to keep the grin off my face. Surreptitiously, I slide my hand into the back of my shirt and touch my tattoo. Proud that I’m getting out and feeling as though, finally, my old life won’t touch me or her memory ever again.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Five hours into my flight and my optimism is starting to fail me. I’ve been sat next a rather large woman who has a penchant for mind numbing conversation. She’s now told me her entire family history and has started to ask me about mine.
Of course, I’m not going to share my history with her. Instead, I tell her the modified version I’ve been using lately.
“My family are all dead,” I reply after doing my best to avoid her questions for nearly twenty minutes. I get that she’s just trying to make conversation to pass the time. But the flight from Sydney to Heathrow Airport is almost a day in length.
I don’t have it in me to talk to her for that long.
“Oh… I’m so sorry to hear that,” she stammers out, now not sure what to say. She looks at me, her mouth moving up and down like she’s a goldfish caught out of water. Her jowly cheeks are wobbling, and her eyes are darting nervously around as she searches for something else to say.
“It’s fine. I just don’t like to talk about it,” I tell her, looking out the window at the passing clouds. After years of saying that they kicked me out, I’ve stopped, I’ve taken to telling people that they all died in an accident. It’s easier that way. People ask too many questions when you tell them you were evicted from your own family. Besides – it doesn’t make me sound so great. What does it say about me? The one that was cast out. It says no one loved me enough to fight for me, that I’m too much trouble to put up with. It’s better if I say they’re dead – it makes me lucky to be the one who’s still alive. Better still, it stops the questions.
Staring out the window, I watch the clouds roll by below us, like a fluffy white and grey blanket that I so desperately want to touch. The woman turns her attention to the guy sitting on the other side of her and starts to ask him questions about his life instead. I’ve made her uncomfortable. I have probably made everyone within earshot uncomfortable.
Pressing the buds of my headphones inside my ears, I scroll through my music and select an album. I’m really into 90’s alternative music right now so I choose Custard’s Wahooti Fandango. ‘Teensville’ starts floating into my ears as I close my eyes and lean my head against the window. I keep the sound at a level that is just enough to mask the sounds of the plane but quiet enough to lull me off to sleep.
***
In my dream, there’s a bear growling outside. I’m aware it’s a dream because Australia doesn’t have bears in the wild, so it confuses me to hear one. My consciousness moves forward as the rumbling sounds vibrate through me. It’s the sounds of the plane and…. snoring? My eyes flutter open and I remove the buds from my ears, the album I was listening to long since over, and turn my head toward the exasperating noise.
The woman who was talking to me earlier has her head tilted back, her mouth is wide open and the noise is emanating from her throat. I squint at her, willing her with my mind to stir enough so the noise will stop. When she starts making a small choking sound, I flinch, surprised and slightly impressed with my new mind control ability as she quiets and her breathing evens out.
I breathe out slowly - glad the noise is over; and move to replace the buds in my ears. But I’m paused, my reprieve all too brief, as my skull starts vibrating when she starts up again – so much for my awesome mind control skills…
I cross my eyes in agitation and reach my hand toward her, clamping my fingers on either side of her nose. She makes a guttural sound, and I withdraw my hand quickly, looking out the window and pretending nothing happened. I start counting seconds as I wait to see if it worked, feeling safe when I reach a full minute in silence.
“Thank god,” I say to myself as I lean my head back against the window. The second I begin to relax however, she starts up again.
The guy on the other side of her starts laughing. As I lean forward to look at him, I realise he’s the one I noticed in the waiting area before we boarded. He’s laughing so hard, that I find myself smiling without even meaning to.
He’s quite frankly, the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on, but looks almost too large to be in such a small seat. His long legs are angled so that one is in the aisle, and the other is wedged in the minute gap between the seats in front of him. He has broad firm shoulders that
span further than the width of the seat. His hair is light golden brown and a little longer than I like on guy, but it kind of suits him. He’s wearing a good day or two worth of stubble - which I’ll admit is a bit on the sexy side. But it’s his eyes that are most striking. They look like someone took the clearest, bluest part of the ocean and dropped it into his irises.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m not laughing at you. I’ve been trying to make her stop snoring for ages. I’m laughing at the situation.”
He’s smiling at me; his smile is textbook perfect and creases the corners of his eyes that are watering a little from his laughter. It’s a killer smile - if I hadn’t sworn myself off men years ago, I think I’d go all fluttery over him. But I don’t.
Instead, I decide to get up and go for a walk to stretch my legs. He gets up to let me out and makes some comment about my shirt that I ignore. He even holds his hand out to steady me as I climb over the large woman who is seated between us.
I don’t take it. I just look at it. He’s trying to be nice. I know that. But I can’t let men be nice to me. Not when I’ve come so far. Not when I know that I can do this on my own.
As I walk toward the back of the plane I feel his eyes on me. It makes my skin prickle with an attraction I don’t want to feel. I pull at my shirt to make sure all my skin is covered.
Covertly, I glance over my shoulder at the beautiful man who is still standing in the aisle as he leans forward and rubs the back of his neck, with a strong lean arm. He looks the epitome of the perfect man - strong, healthy, and based upon my short interaction with him, he’s been brought up well.
I walk until I reach the back of the plane where there’s a little alcove with a window. I’m so tired that I rest my forehead against the glass and just look out at the nothingness that is the night sky.
“Hey there,” a deep rumble of a voice says from behind me, I tilt my head to the side, still pressed up against the glass - it’s the guy from my row.
Sighing, I turn and face him, not saying anything. I just look at him and wait for him to speak – he obviously wants to have a conversation, and I’m doing my best to seem uninterested. I want to get this done and over, as quickly as possible.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he says, putting his hands in his jean’s pockets, suddenly looking unsure of himself. “I needed to get away from the noise too.” The corner of his lip turns up as he studies me. I notice his eyes scan the length of my body and automatically fold my arms across my middle protectively, feeling betrayed by my body as it flashes hot under his gaze.
“Why would I mind?” I ask him flatly. “It’s not like I own the plane.”
He gives me what I think might be his most dashing smile, but he still looks unsure of me. “I’m Elliot by the way,” he tells me, extending his hand to shake mine.
My eyes travel down to his outstretched arm. I don’t want to take it. When I look up at his expectant face, his eyes narrow slightly, but he keeps his hand stretched out towards me stubbornly.
“I won’t bite,” he assures me, and I’m not so sure about that.
Giving in, I reach out and take his hand. “Paige,” I nod, trying to keep my cool. Although, I have to supress a gasp as our palms connect. It’s as if his life force just travelled up my arm and mingled with mine. I snatch my hand back quickly, hiding it behind my back, as I try to ignore the tingle his hand has left there.
A slight longing throbs inside of me. The one that wishes for the life I could have had, instead of the one I got. But I squash it down as quickly as it surfaces.
I can’t allow myself to seek the comfort in the arms of another person again. It’s caused me nothing but pain and rejection, from the moment my mother stopped holding me as a child. I’ve longed to be held. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this yearning inside me for comfort, for caring. For someone who gave a damn.
That longing has caused me to make colossal errors in my life. I’ve fallen into situations that a stronger person would have refused to be a part of – and all because I was searching for comfort, searching for love – for acceptance.
But I didn’t find it, and I never will. For the rest of my life, my only comfort will come from my beautiful Phoenix, as she wraps her wings around my body and holds me tightly.
I will live a life filled with regret. I can’t have any other. For some reason, after all I’ve done. I’ve been given a second chance. Phoenix was my angel. She saved me. But as a result, she lost her life.
That cost was too great, and it’s more than I can bear. I wish she had lived instead of me. I feel so undeserving of her sacrifice.
She was perfect. She was innocent. I hate that I’m here and she’s not. Because I can’t live anymore. I can exist. I can survive. But I can’t live, and I can’t feel – not in the way a man like Elliot would make me. I can’t get caught up in that again.
When I was young, I had dreams. Dreams about happily every afters and a life filled with love. Now, I have nightmares. My dreams are all long since dead and buried. People like me – we don’t get happily ever afters. We’re lucky enough just to be alive.
The End – Paige’s story continues with Elliot in A Beautiful Forever.
More books in the Beautiful Series and its companion series, The Beauty in Between -
A Beautiful Struggle
(Too Close)
A Beautiful Forever
(Commitment)
(Phoenix)
A Beautiful Melody
Next in the Beautiful Series
Phoenix: The Beauty in Between
A Beautiful Melody
Books by Lilliana Anderson
The Confidante Trilogy
Confidante: The Brothel
Confidante: The Escort
A Beautiful Series
Too Close: The Beauty in Between
A Beautiful Struggle
A Beautiful Forever
Commitment: The Beauty in Between
Phoenix: The Beauty in Between
Entwined Series
Our Hearts Entwined
Coming Soon
A Beautiful Series
A Beautiful Melody (November 30)
A Beautiful Rock
The Confidante Trilogy
Confidante: The Madame
Connect with me:
For updates or to ask questions/ send comments,
you can contact me at [email protected]
follow me on twitter @Confidante_Lili
or facebook where I am most active—
http://www.facebook.com/pages/LillianaAnderson-Author/444649528938470
http://www.facebook.com/lilliana.anderson.12
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. I hope to have a very long writing career, producing books and characters you’ll come to love.
If you enjoyed reading, please take a moment to let someone know. Use the social media options on your device to share this book on Facebook or Twitter, and if you have time, leave a rating and review – I love to read your comments.
Phoenix: The Beauty in Between (A Beautiful Series Companion Novel) Page 16
